Don't Shortchange Salmon

BPA may be tempted to divert power to California,
but it shouldn't do it at the expense of migrating salmon

Spare kilowatts are so expensive these days that the
Bonneville Power Administration was sorely tempted earlier
this week to produce and sell power to California at the
expense of migrating salmon.

Wisely, the agency didn't do it. Nor should it do so in the
future unless California is undergoing a power emergency
threatening public health and safety.

We are not talking about surplus power that was going to
waste. What BPA considered doing was to briefly stop
spilling water at three dams in order to produce power for
California, which was sweltering in a heat wave. The spill
helps young salmon pass the dams without going through
turbines or fish collection systems. It's a critical part of the
salmon recovery effort.

In other words, this action literally would have been a case
of selling salmon down the river.

The agency rationalized that to shut off the spill would
probably kill only about 2 percent of the tail-end of the run
of fall chinook to the sea -- and most of those smolt
probably would be hatchery fish, not endangered wild fish.

Even if those calculations were right, this is not the kind of
message the BPA ought to be sending Northwest citizens
who are being told they must do extraordinary things in the
next several years to restore imperiled salmon runs.

Just last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service
recommended that all federal agencies, including the BPA,
step up their efforts to get the young fish safely by the
dams in lieu of a more aggressive strategy of breaching the
four lower Snake River dams.

BPA's initial plan was to shut off spill for about four to six
hours during the late afternoon when California home
air-conditioners were being cranked up full blast. Calling
the decision a "judgment call," BPA officials canceled the
sale only after it became clear that that there wasn't
capacity in the power lines connecting Oregon and
California to send the extra electricity.

That wasn't the right reason for abandoning the idea. The
right reason is that spilling water over dams to aid fish
survival is a higher priority.

Clearly the hot summer days throughout the West have
created a booming seller's market for electricity. It had to
be mighty tempting for BPA power marketers because last
Tuesday it could sell electricity to California for $349.96 per
megawatt hour at 5 p.m., compared with just $34.10 at the
same time and date last year.

This is not to say that the Northwest should become so
provincial that it looks on California's electricity needs with
disdain. If BPA could sell surplus power to parched
Californians this summer without curtailing the fish-spill
operation, it clearly should do it.

The Northwest and the Southwest regions are natural
power partners. Traditionally, when Californians need a
power transfusion in summer months, we give it gladly
knowing that California usually returns the favor when we
need a kilowatt-fix in winter months.

The Northwest also needs to act when California reaches a
power-deficit emergency in which the public health and
safety are at risk.

When the health of people isn't at risk, though, saving
salmon should come first.